[John Pale]

For effects work, its totally feasible and valid to work in 10 bit uncompressed…but if you are editing complete shows, where you have hours and hours of tape footage to deal with, the speed and space requirements are enormous and costly.

Adobe has been given a gift here with Apple basically voluntarily withdrawing from the pro market. The wave of new Premiere converts are going to be expecting a comparable codec to work with.

Thanks for the Matrox suggestion. That might work for some projects in the interim…will have to test. Of course, unlike ProRes, which is 10 bit in all flavors, it is only 8

[John Pale]

I am finding it still happens intermittently, but frequently, even after the fix suggested.

[John Pale]

[Daniel McClintock] “Premiere Pro plays a good majority of the codecs used out there natively so you don’t have to transcode — just import the file, drop it in the time timeline and just edit — this is especially true for DSLRs and RED.
“

This is the same thinking that got apple in trouble with a lot of people. Tape still exists, and will for a long time to come. If you are working with tape (HDCAM, HDCAM SR, D5, etc) what codec can you capture with that is high quality but doesn’t require massive amounts of high speed storage? Do I have to factor in buying a codec like Cineform to the cost of switching?

Relying on codecs from Apple or Avid to get the job done doesn’t really sound like a good plan. They aren’t really optimized for Premiere, so they don’t work as efficiently…and you are at their mercy when it comes to support.

[John Pale]

I got an e-mail a few hours ago from BMD saying the bug will be fixed in the release version of 8.2 (the bug still exists in the beta).

[John Pale]

Cineform is great, but costs between $129-$999, depending on what you want to use it for.

[John Pale]

[Hector berrebi] “DNX is good and solid, but it is not ProRes, not yet at least. For one, it does not have SD or greater than HD options, in fact, it is strictly HD 720 or 1080. Furthermore, it still does not have a 444 variant, and always clips to 709. And last, ProRes 4×4 is 12 bit color depth, DNX does not top 10 to my best knowledge.
“

Ah…thanks for the info.

DNX does offer 10 bit (use the variants that have an X after them). No 12 bit or 4444, though. DNX does offer an alpha channel though. ProRes only does in ProRes 4444.

[John Pale]

[Simon Ubsdell] “My subjective experience is that DNx is not as good as ProRes”

Probably a better discussion for the Avid forum, but what problems did you have with DNX. In my experience, its indistinguishable from ProRes. It was developed a few years before and on some tests I have seen fares a tiny bit better than ProRes…though in a way thats only truly observable on scopes.

The only problems I have had with Avid DNX is converting between it and Apple ProRes, which under certain conditions, causes a gamma shift.

I haven’t tried capturing it from a deck in Premiere, but if its possible, it would be great.

Having no compressed tape capture codec, for HD at least, is a bit of a problem with Premiere, unless you are equipped to work uncompressed. Blackmagic offers a preset for MJPEG, but I would prefer a more modern codec like ProRes or Avid DNX…which are good enough for online.

[John Pale]

I guess if there is a will, there is a way…

Doesn’t sound like a good idea though. The whole editing model of FCPX is based on using the product in the way it was intended. Trying to force it to work another way, sounds like an exercise in frustration. If you hate FCPX and can’t adjust to it, you really should just switch to Adobe. It pretty much works the way you want it to.

People who try to make an Avid work like FCP (or vice versa) are always the most frustrated editors. Each system has its own way of doing things and its best to learn it rather than fight it. FCP X is no different.

[John Pale]

Adobe Media Encoder is included and is superior to Compressor in many ways (is 64 bit and very fast). It doesn’t have the encoder farm capability of Qmaster, if you use that.

Adobe does not have a code comparable to ProRes. If you keep FCP installed on the same system, you can continue to encode to ProRes in Quicktime applications, including Adobe’s. If you don’t wish to keep FCP installed, you can give Avid DNX a try. Its a free download from Avid and is comparable in every way to ProRes.

I have read that MP4s that are encoded by AME do not support progressive download (meaning they don’t play until fully downloaded from the web), but that may not matter to you.

I like DVDSP better than Adobe Encore for standard DVD’s. Encore supports BluRay and DVDSP doesn’t, though.

[John Pale]

[Aindreas Gallagher] “That said.. I did spec all the black magic cards for Aljazeera English for creative at launch. Like 20 odd seats. And I got it totally wrong – they had an incredible tendency to overheat and shut down in the 1U enclosures. All the engineers hated me. I said hello, they said ‘Kona’. So like, I know my video cards alright. Reeeaal good.
“

Cool. Good choice. I really liked my Kona on my old G5. I went to Blackmagic when I had to upgrade to a Mac Pro and didn’t have the budget to stay with AJA. Its pretty much an editorial show stopper for me switching to Adobe until Blackmagic fixes the issue. I am a long time Avid user, totally fluent and comfortable with it, and I would be inclined to go in that direction, but unless they open up their capture cards a bit more, Adobe has more value. I can get the whole Adobe suite for the same price as Avid MC right now (even with the current switcher promotions). I really don’t like Boris or Sorensen Squeeze much, which come with Avid.

That being said…for those that need it, Blackmagic’s new capture tool is wonderful for FCPX. Media Express 3 is actually a good deal better than FCP 7 for tape capture and layback. It even has some metadata and xml support. You can capture with it, then import into X nicely. Export a QT from X and lay to tape. AJA needs to upgrade their tool, if they want to continue supporting FCPX. It works, but its pretty bare bones in comparison.